Taking time with him

I’d been taking time to take walks with my son. Just us two. Just wandering. No particular goal, other than to just walk in each other’s company.

It’s nice to be outside. And even nicer to watch him waddling around aimlessly in his toddler gait, exploring little nooks and crannies, plucking wild flowers, picking up leaves and pebbles.

Being with him, doing that alongside him, had been a strangely calming exercise. Emotionally moving, even.

I’d been rushing all this while. Since the start of the pandemic probably. And I hardly ever stopped, lest say do something “aimless”.

I need this more than he does, it seems.

I always believed that our children are here to help us grow. Not just into parents, but as a person. The popular narrative is often the opposite – we as parents help them grow as a person. But really, it goes both ways. I’d argue that it goes more towards helping us adults grow than the other.

This beautiful relationship is best captured by Kahlil Gibran, in his book The Prophet:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts…
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Indeed. Life does not go backward or abide in the past.

Taking time with him, he brings me to the present. Just us two.

And it’s enough.